Patrick Marleau has been a 30-goal scorer six times in his NHL career, including each of the last four seasons. With 396 goals in his career, he is eighth among active players, and 88th on the all-time list. Both of Marleaus's seasons in the league's top 10 have come since he turned 30, so he has proven not to be the typical elite scorer who peaks at a young age.

Being atypical is one thing. The start that Marleau has had to this season is something else entirely. Marleau leads the NHL with nine goals in five games for the undefeated San Jose Sharks, including a pair in each of the first four contests as the 33-year-old winger became the first player to start a season so strongly since Hall of Famer Cy Denneny of the Ottawa Senators—the original Ottawa Senators—in 1917-18, the NHL's inaugural season.

Marleau's achievement is made all the more impressive by the fact that all of the teams he played against have remained in business. When Denneny had his season-opening streak, the third and fourth games were a home-and-home series against the Montreal Wanderers. Four days later, Montreal Arena burned down, and the Wanderers never played another game.

The Sharks have been playing in the NHL since 1991, and Marleau has been with San Jose since 1997, when he was the No. 2 pick in the NHL draft. Marleau's career really took off in 2005, when the Sharks acquired Joe Thornton from the Boston Bruins. In the 2005-06 season, Marleau cracked the 30-goal barrier for the first time, scoring 34 times, and finished with 86 points, still his career high. He’s had four straight 30-goal seasons entering this year’s campaign.

This season, Thornton has an NHL-best 10 assists, six of which have come on goals by Marleau. Together with Joe Pavelski, a Shark since 2006, San Jose's top line has taken advantage of familiarity to breed contempt from opposing goaltenders.

"With a short season and a short training camp, obviously it has given us an edge early on," Marleau said on Monday, when he was named the NHL's player of the week. "I think we can still build and get better as a line, but things are going really well right now."

Things are going so well, Marleau is on an 86-goal pace for the 48-game season, while he and Thornton are both on pace for 125 points, a total last reached in the NHL by Thornton himself in 2005-06, when he won the Hart Trophy after being traded from Boston to San Jose in November.

There is a common thread between 2005-06 and this season beyond hot play from Marleau and Thornton. Then, as now, the NHL was resuming play after a lockout, and while the more recent work stoppage did not cost an entire season as the 2004-05 mess did, both times, Thornton went to Switzerland to play for HC Davos.

"The practices over here are more team-oriented, and over there, everything is about the skill—individual skill," Thornton said. "I think the coach over there (Arno del Curto), he's been there (since 1996), and he knows how he likes to play. It keeps you in shape and it keeps you playing. Whatever it is, it's been working for me."

What's working for Marleau, who did not play abroad during either lockout, may be easier to identify. Over the course of his career, Marleau has averaged 2.45 shots on goal per game. With 24 shots in five games this season, he is averaging 4.8. Even while he is shooting more often, more of Marleau's shots are finding the back of the net. A career 14.4 percent shooter, Marleau has scored on 37.5 percent of his tries this season.

There is another important 37.5 percent rate to note here, and that is the Sharks' conversion percentage on a league-high 32 power plays so far. Of the 87:45 that Marleau has played this season, a full 24 minutes have been with the man advantage. That works out to 27.4 percent of Marleau's ice time. Last season, 15.6 percent of Marleau's action came on the power play.

It is only natural that Marleau would take more shots—and have more quality chances—when he is spending so much time skating five-against-four. Five of Marleau's nine goals have come on the power play.

"You try to make a conscious effort (to shoot more), but I think it goes hand in hand," Marleau said. "I've been getting a lot of opportunities. If they start going in, it makes a lot of sense to keep shooting, so I've just been trying to keep that up."

It won't last forever, because hot streaks never do, but Marleau has put himself in position to chase a 30-goal season—a total reached by five players (Peter Bondra, Jaromir Jagr, Owen Nolan, Ray Sheppard, and Alex Zhamnov) in the last 48-game season in 1995. If Marleau returns to his career shots-per-game and goals-per-shot rates for the rest of this season, he will finish with 24 goals. To get to 30, he needs to stay hot for just a little longer, and the Sharks are more than happy to help him try.

"You want to keep feeding him because he's so hot, and it seems like he's always around the goal and the blue paint," Thornton said. "That's where he's scoring his goals. For it to keep going in like it has, I haven't seen anything like it, and it's been real fun to watch."